FWIW, Boston dropped three of their five ex-Cubs to come up with their playoff roster. Minnie has two, and Houston one, making it a null factor for either. The Yanks and Redbirds kept on their six and three, respectively -- brass balls on those two, for sure.

Bob wrote:FWIW, Boston dropped three of their five ex-Cubs to come up with their playoff roster. Minnie has two, and Houston one, making it a null factor for either. The Yanks and Redbirds kept on their six and three, respectively -- brass balls on those two, for sure.

I have no idea what the above statement means... but I do know the RED SOX lost....

How about that! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 13, 2004
YANKEES LEAD SERIES, 1-0
It's Not Perfect, but the Yankees Will Take It
By TYLER KEPNER

They have leaned on him for almost a decade, asking him hundreds of times to save them. But it had never been quite like this, never so wrenching for Mariano Rivera, rarely so important for the Yankees.

The game was spinning away from them. The Boston Red Sox were spilling from their dugout, revived by David Ortiz's two-run triple, poised to steal the first game of the American League Championship Series. The Yankees had scored the first eight runs, and now Boston had scored the next seven. The tying run was 90 feet away.

Then came Rivera, the extraordinary closer, who had not arrived at Yankee Stadium until the second inning. He had spent most of the day in Panama, singing and praying and crying at a funeral for two relatives killed in an electrical accident around the pool at his home there on Saturday.

"I was coming here to pitch," Rivera said. "I wouldn't be on site if I wouldn't pitch today. I wanted to pitch; I wanted to be there. My teammates needed me there."

Rivera reached the mound and took the ball. Derek Jeter, the captain, draped an arm over Rivera's shoulder. Jorge Posada, the catcher, patted him vigorously on the chest.

After his warm-ups, Rivera fired two balls, high, to Kevin Millar. Then he induced a soft pop-up, to Jeter, and the inning was over. Rivera was saving the Yankees, again, and they went on to a 10-7 victory last night and an early edge in the best-of-seven-game A.L.C.S.

Bernie Williams doubled home two runs in the bottom of the eighth to extend the Yankees' lead, but Boston had the tying run at the plate with one out and two on. It was Bill Mueller, who had homered off Rivera to win a game in July. This time, Rivera fielded Mueller's grounder and fired to second to start a game-ending double play.

It was not supposed to be so close, not with the way the starters pitched. Boston's Curt Schilling, who taped his sore right ankle and numbed it with an anesthetic, gave up six runs in three innings. The Yankees' Mike Mussina took a perfect game into the seventh.

But Mussina, who missed a perfect game by one strike at Fenway Park in 2001, allowed a one-out double to Mark Bellhorn, sparking a five-run rally.

Tom Gordon started the eighth, and Mueller led off with an infield single. With two out, Manny Ramirez blooped a single to left. Ortiz came up as the tying run, and he blasted a 3-1 pitch to left-center field. Did the Red Sox think it was gone?

"Off the bat, yeah," said Jason Varitek, whose two-run homer capped the rally in the seventh. "But it's an awfully long way out there when it's cool and it's late at night."

The park held it, but Hideki Matsui did not. Matsui, who had tied a single-game A.L.C.S. record with five runs batted in, overran the ball, twisting in midair to get a glove on it at the warning track. But the ball popped loose, two runs scored and Ortiz had a triple. Manager Joe Torre summoned Rivera, who had told the pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre that he would be ready.

Rivera preserved a victory for Mussina, who struck out eight with no walks and consistently got ahead of the Red Sox' hitters. Boston General Manager Theo Epstein had theorized that his team's patient approach might hurt against the Yankees' strike throwers. That is just what happened.

Seven of the first nine Red Sox batters took a first-pitch strike. It was an invitation for a crafty pitcher to use his arsenal, and Mussina did, fooling the hitters with curveballs and spotting his fastball with precision.

"As long as I could throw that first-pitch strike, it plays in my favor," Mussina said.

Mussina threw 11 pitches in each of the first three innings, striking out the leadoff hitter Johnny Damon on a knuckle-curve and inducing three popouts. There was only one hard-hit ball, a Bellhorn drive that Williams caught over his shoulder in center field.

In the fourth inning, the Red Sox changed the pattern. Instead of taking first-pitch strikes, they took strike threes. Damon, Bellhorn and Ramirez all went down looking, and two more perfect innings went by.

"Sure, you think about it," Mussina said. "You're only human. I know what's going on. But they're a good-hitting club, and they proved it."

So did the Yankees, who took advantage of Schilling on a night when he could not find his best fastball. Schilling had promised that his right ankle would not bother him, but he uses it to push off the rubber and generate the force behind his fastball. Something was missing.

"I couldn't throw the ball where I wanted," Schilling said. "I thought it was obvious. I didn't command the baseball like I could have and should have. It was no fault of anything other than me."

With two outs in the first, Schilling got ahead of Gary Sheffield, then threw three balls in a row. Sheffield yanked the next pitch into the left-field corner for a double.

Matsui fell behind in the count, 0-2, hit a foul and reached down to flick a ball into left field, past the diving Ramirez for a double. It scored Sheffield, and Williams rolled the next pitch up the middle to score Matsui and give the Yankees a 2-0 lead.

They went quietly in the second, but Schilling was hurting. After the inning, he said, he told the pitching coach Dave Wallace he could not "reach back" for his best stuff.

"I wasn't out there trying to prove a point," Schilling said, but he was not himself. He gave up singles to Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, and walked Sheffield to load the bases in the third.

Matsui got a hanging slider and ripped a line drive off the right-field wall, scoring three runs as Trot Nixon fell in pursuit. A sacrifice fly by Posada made it 6-0.

Schilling left after the third inning and said he did not know yet about his availability to start Game 5. His status was another crisis for the Red Sox, and the Yankees' victory was a crisis averted. They owed it to Rivera, as usual.

"Believe me, I wanted to stay home and stay with my family," he said. "But I have a job to do."

Bob wrote:FWIW, Boston dropped three of their five ex-Cubs to come up with their playoff roster. Minnie has two, and Houston one, making it a null factor for either. The Yanks and Redbirds kept on their six and three, respectively -- brass balls on those two, for sure.

I have no idea what the above statement means...

The "ex-Cub factor" is alleged to affect the fortunes of any baseball team reaching the Series with three or more ex-Cubs. The Cubs last won in 1908. When they reached the pennant and bombed in the Series in 1945, it was said to be due to a curse leveled against them by one of their own fans, over an incident involving a billygoat refused free pasture in the unfriendly confines of Wrigley Field.

Over the last half century, only the 1960 Pirates and the 2001 Diamondbacks have won the Series with three or more ex-Cubs -- which has been explained by an additional unmitigating factor known as "Cubness" -- ie, how much individual ex-Cub players buy into the whole loser thing.

cowboyangel wrote:why we are great fans is because no matter what, we love our Red Sox, no matter what, and we will always love them!

if that is the only qualification, let me introduce you to the Chicago Cubs.

YANKEES LEAD SERIES, 2-0
Lieber Tucks In Red Sox for the Night
By TYLER KEPNER

Published: October 14, 2004

It was the greatest moment of his career, and Jon Lieber was still in a hurry. There were 56,136 fans standing for him and roaring, their voices strident, somehow, after screaming about Pedro Martínez's paternity for most of the night.

Lieber must have heard them, standing there on the mound as Joe Torre came to take him out in the top of the eighth inning. But he hustled off the field, jogging, efficient until the end.

"Since I was a boy, when I get taken out of a game, I try to get on and off the field, I don't know why," Lieber said. "I'm not going to say I'm deaf to the whole situation, but you can hear what's going on."

Lieber deserved the ovation. While Martínez slogged through six innings at Yankee Stadium, Lieber subdued the mighty offense of the Boston Red Sox, leading the Yankees to a 3-1 victory in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series.

The Yankees lead the best-of-seven-game series, two games to none, after shelling Curt Schilling on Tuesday and handling Martínez last night.

"These two games were huge, especially tonight," Torre, the Yankees' manager, said. "Curt didn't have his best stuff yesterday, but Pedro was Pedro. To beat him when he had stuff like this, it really gives us a lot of confidence."